Co-sponsored by ICES

Co-Convenors: Jeffrey Polovina (USA), Anne Hollowed (USA), Shin-ichi Ito (Japan) and Myron Peck (Germany)

Invited Speakers:
Julia Blanchard (University of Sheffield, UK)
Julia K. Baum (University of Victoria, Canada)
Villy Christensen (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Size-based and species-specific ecosystem models are two different approaches to ecosystem modeling, based on different assumptions and designed to address somewhat different questions. In recent years considerable development of size-based models has occurred within the ICES community while the PICES community has typically focused on species-specific models for its applications. The objective of this workshop is to bring together the two communities of modelers to: (1) advance our understanding of the advantages and limitations of these two modeling approaches, especially in the context of modeling climate impacts on ecosystems, (2) make direct comparisons of the predictions of ecosystem structure and dynamics, both top-down and bottom-up, from both these model types applied to the same regional ecosystem, where possible under climate change forcing, and (3) discuss the benefits and feasibility of developing hybrid size-based and species-specific models. The workshop will be structured with a series of talks to kick off discussion on these 3 topics.